Comments on: Episode 121: The Perfect Script

By: David Thiel

David Thiel — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 18:10:09 +0000

Maybe it’s because I had just listened to “The Haunted Trailer,” but this felt to me like another early attempt at meta spoofery. It’s a radio script called “The Perfect Script” about a horror radio series (inexplicably) called “The Perfect Script” for which every script is perfect. (Despite, presumably, every episode being about a radio writer killed by someone named George.) I assumed that the nonsensical plot and dodgy performances were deliberate.

A couple of questions:

When did Trudy say that John was her brother? I combed over the episode and couldn’t find it. Is this perhaps a deliberate imperfection in this otherwise perfect script?

Should I make anything of the fact that her dead husband’s name Jack is a nickname for John?

What is George? You guys talked about him as if he was another family member, but the narrator refers to him as a monster and John says that he has a “cozy little apartment below ground,” which I took to be a grave.

Surely it’s not a coincidence that George shares his name with another simple-minded brute?

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 15:18:52 +0000

121 episodes of this podcast so far. 121. And I’d say only a few have them have so absorbed me while I was driving in my car. From the opening fakeout (I had to start over; I thought I’d missed something) I was completely engrossed. Everything faded from my mind but the sounds of the radio, the music, the voices.

Roger Ebert was adamant that when he reviewed a movie, he changed his criteria based on what the movie was trying to do. A horror movie? “Did it scare me?” A comedy? “Did it make me laugh.”

This show was trying to keep me off balance and have me listen to the end with my mouth open. It succeeded.

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 12:16:31 +0000

I’m not sold on the idea that he actually died – I think all this was written while he was in a drug induced hallucination, which would be why it would work on many writers over time.

Milk was also used in quite a few movies as a way to poison people (the two Mrs Carrolls comes to mind), and I think that it was used by writers to use something innocent as a vehicle of death, which is always off putting. Like children were used in horror movies during the early 2000s, milk post prohibition was considered “safe” or “pure”, no one suspects that bland white drink (plus the color would hide cloudiness) of dealing death.

By: Christy B

Christy B — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 05:06:04 +0000

I did assume from near the beginning of the episode that the poor writer wasn’t long for the world (let alone the episode), but then when the grisly action began, I thought the same as commenter Dave Potts – how did this work so many times, supposedly, previously?? Then I thought I figured it all out: of course all this insanity is simply actors in a play (within a radio show, about writing a script..??) that the producer is putting on for the benefit of this writer, so that the writer is under the Exact Conditions to be able to produce The Perfect Script. Then, ha ha!, it would all be an act, from crazy George to crazy Trudy to the drugged milk (okay, the milk can still be drugged) and when he is typing his final lines, death coming toward him… The producer and every one else hop up or break character and say “Great Job! Awesome Script! We’re done here!” and hugs all around as they wipe up the fake blood. (Do actors hug?) Then the producer would take the script and the show would go on the air, and the writer… okay. They obviously kill the writers… hmm. Or maybe they just store them somewhere? The basement with George? Anyway. I was actually slightly shocked when, whelp, everyone’s dead – play the closing music!

(“David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino writing old radio” – oh my word, I laughed out loud. Then laughed again with the comment here referencing “The Room”! HA! and Yikes!)
Thank you once again, gentlemen, for much amusement!

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:59:36 +0000

So. Many. Questions.

But I will limit myself to just one: At what point was “drug-fueled orgy of death” thought to be the correct answer to the question: “What do the people of 1940s Utah really want to hear over the airwaves?”

This episode is OTR’s version of “The Room”. If I hadn’t heard this with my own ears, I’d never have believed that anyone would have had the audacity to broadcast it. Like Joshua, I am agape… and yet I can’t not listen.

Finally, for a script that is replete with obvious problems with the writing, there are a handful of great lines. Notably:

“You depend too much on the discretion of the insane.”

By: Dave Potts

Dave Potts — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:20:51 +0000

The question of whether it stands the test of time doesn’t really seem to be applicable for this one, as it probably works just as well now as it ever did (which is another way of saying that it probably didn’t work any better at the time than it does now).

Still, I found myself enjoying it, despite having to think “What the–?” every couple of minutes. And I was even caught up in the suspense at the end, wondering if the drug would wear off in the nick of time, or if George was going to kill him. And I thought the ending was pretty effective. So I guess it does stand the test of time.

But I have to wonder about all of the previous perfect scripts. While he was drugged, Schenk (SP?) just typed out a narrative of what was happening to him, which would not have been usable for the program. Were the previous writers unable to move or resist, but still able to think up a grisly story about some other topic? Was Schenk just less creative than the others? How could the producer be sure that the writers would turn out something he could use? Did he maybe bring a new writer there every day, not just once a week, and one out of seven scripts was usable? Probably best not to think about this story too much.